Racial Breakdown on Household PCs

Census figures show that 13.8% of African American, 26.9% of white,
and 12.9% of Hispanic households have PCs. In terms of how black
households use their PCs, 35.2% use them for e-mail; 24.2% for
bookkeeping; 24.1% for games and entertainment; 18.8% for scheduling;
8.8% to access bulletin boards; and 7.2% to connect to computer
systems at work. (St. Petersburg Times 2/27/95 B3)

PC Usage

The U.S. home computer market is thriving thanks to employees who
take work home with them, according to a study by International Data
Corp. IDC found 37% of U.S. homes have one or more PCs, versus 30%
in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Denmark, 28% in Germany,
24% in Britain, 15% in France, and fewer than 10% in Japan. U.S.
consumers spend about 13 hours a week on their home PCs, 80% of which
is work-related. (USA Today 3/7/95 B1)

CompuServe

[Compuserve] also announce plans to have universal 28.8Kbps access and
to more than double their total world-wide number of access ports from
42,000 to 85,000 by May '96.
[http://www.clark.net:80/pub/robert/060495.html]

Web hits soar, but user numbers still elusive

By John Evan Frook and Erika Welz

LOS ANGELES - Six months ago, Netscape Communications Corp. reported
an average of 800,000 hits a day as part of a Forrester Research Inc.
study. Last week it reported 5 million hits per day to Interactive
Age. Judging from Interactive Age's Hit List, a sampling of Web
traffic released this week, that explosive growth is typical of what's
happening to major sites on the Web. Yahoo's average traffic
increased from 840,000 hits daily in January to 1.35 million;
Microsoft Corp.'s went from 17,000 hits to more than 400,000; and Sony
Online reports a 50 percent increase in traffic.

In pursuit of the wired generation

While marketers are flocking to the Internet in hopes of capturing the
attention of Generation X students, an analysis by Hanigan Consulting
Group in New York indicates this may be a flawed strategy. While it's
true that 98% of undergraduate students have access to the Internet
and half of them use it every day, 71% use it just for e-mail,
bypassing the Web entirely. Only 0.3% of students have every bought
anything through the Internet, and plans for staying wired after
graduation are sketchy -- just a third of the undergraduates intend to
subscribe to an online service after graduation. (Investor's Business
Daily 7/11/95 A8)

Commercial online service growth

A survey by the Information & Interactive Services Report indicates
the number of subscribers to commercial online information services
increased 17% in the past three months, for a total of about 8-1/2
million, 3 million of which belong to America Online, 3.2 million to
CompuServe, and 1.6 million to Prodigy. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution
7/14/95 H3)

Studie warnt vor Multimedia Euphorie

800 telephone interviews in the US by consulting company Mercer little
enthusiasm for video-on-demand, but still $12b market private
communication, entertainment, information from $60b to $100b in the year
2005 or 2010; multimedia providers would have to invest up to $2000 per
household, while the average household would only pay $60 per month for
telephone and cable.
Tagesspiegel, 9/24/95, p. 24

The amazing shrinking Internet

A survey recently conducted by Trish Information Services for
O'Reilly & Associates pegs the number of Internet users in the U.S. far
below the usual 15 million figure. The survey suggests the real number
is 5.8 million (in addition to the 3.9 million estimated to be
commercial online service users). According to the survey, the
demographics of the group show 67% are male, more than half are between
the ages of 18 and 34, and about half work for companies with more than
1,000 employees. The median household income falls in the
$50,000-75,000 range. (Investor's Business Daily 28 Sep 95 A8)

Meanwhile, a survey of online usage commissioned by Internet
publishers O'Reilly & Associates and Trish Information Services found
that only 3.7% of American adults are online and most are men who make
between $25,000 and $75,000 a year.
source

Survey ranks U.S. no. 1 in multimedia readiness

Not surprisingly, an International Telecommunication Union survey of
39 countries ranked the U.S. tops in ability to use multimedia
services, thanks to broad penetration of telephone lines, TV sets and
personal computers. Denmark came in second, followed by Canada and
Sweden. Tied for fifth were Australia, France and Switzerland, with
the Netherlands eighth, Germany ninth and Japan tenth. The report
describes the "info-communications industry" as practically
recession-proof, with revenues of $1.43 trillion in 1994, or 6% of the
world economy. (Tampa Tribune 3 Oct 95 B&F8)

PC Usage

53% of home PCs are equipped with modems;
28% of home PC users currently access an online service;
10% of home PC users have tried an online service, but no longer use one.

Times Mirror Survey Unit Looks At Online

Electronic mail is the most regularly used online activity among
computer users and only one in five online users have accessed the
Internet's World Wide Web, according to a new survey. "Few see online
activities as essential to them, and no single online feature, with the
exception of e-mail, is used with any regularity," said the report. The
Times Mirror Center for The People and The Press interviewed 3,603
adults in May and June for the survey about Americans "going online."
The survey had a 3% margin of error. "Consumers have yet to begin
purchasing goods and services online, and there is little indication
that online news features are changing traditional news consumption
patterns," the report said. While subscribers to an online service
jumped from 5 million in the winter of 1994 to almost 12 million last
June, that still represents only two-thirds of the 18 million homes
where computers are equipped with modems, the survey said. The survey
found that online privacy issues worry many users. "A major fear of
Americans about technology is the potential loss of privacy amid the
powerful array of interconnected data bases holding information about
them," the survey said. Twenty percent said they worry about this "a
lot," while 30% worry "some." Times Mirror said that more than 8 million
households with unused online capability "represent a clear potential
source for the continued rapid expansion of online usage." Moreover, the
survey determined that only 32% of those who go online say they would
miss it "a lot" if it were no longer available. By contrast, 58% of
newspaper readers and 54% of cable TV subscribers would miss those
services if deprived of them. At a time when newspapers and magazines
are full of talk about cyberspace, the survey found that only one in
five of all online users--3% of Americans--have ever signed on to the
World Wide Web. An exception to the slight usage is e-mail.
Twenty-nine percent of e-mail users check their mail once a day, 22%
more than once, the survey found. On a typical day, the average e-mail
user sends three messages and receives five. Last year, in the first
such survey, the center estimated 31% of all American households had a
computer and 26% of all adults used a home computer at some time. That
has increased to 36% of all households having a computer and 32% of
adults using one.

Cowles/SIMBA Media Daily 10/16/95=

PC penetration

Total PC count/PCs per 100 inhabitants in Germany:

1993 9.8 12
1994 12.2 15
1995 15.1 19
1996 18.4 23

Der Tagesspiegel, 10/17/95, p. 15

PC/Internet Usage

According to the survey, last winter there were 11 million Americans
with access to a computer with a modem at home. By last June, the
figure had shot up to 18 million. The study points out that the 12
million who use online services represent only two-thirds of the people
with access to a computer with a modem.
53% of all online users use e-mail at least once per week
30% of all online users use the services to get news
23% of all online users said they participated in discussions online
14% of all online users use the services to get financial information
7% of all online users use the services to play games
29% of e-mail users check mail at least once per day
22% check e-mail more than once per day
25% Have met someone in person after meeting them online
Over 25% have had online sessions lasting more than 3 hours
52% are in favor of barring pornography from the Internet
20% worry about privacy issues "a lot", 30% worry "some"
14% of all Americans use online services or Internet services
(Including access from the workplace)
3.5 percent of all Americans access an online service or
Internet service every day. (Also includes access from the workplace)

Web survey

Jupiter Communications and Yahoo! released the results of an
unscientific study based on 63,000 responses to a survey form that was
available on Yahoo! According to the survey, Web users spend an average
of 20 hours a week online. The survey indicated that 55% of those who
access the Web access from personal computers at home and 61% said that
they watched less television as a result of being online (hey, there are
only so many hours in the day). Though 60% of the respondents said they
had access to a major online service, only 8% used an online service to
access the Web, opting instead to use Internet service providers. This
statistic raises questions about the number of people that have accounts
on multiple services.
source

Media Notes: Nielsen Survey Shows Internet Usage Up

CommerceNet and Nielsen Media Research say a new survey shows a sharp
rise in Internet usage in the United States and Canada to a point that
it rivals time spent viewing rented video tapes. Conducted for
CommerceNet by Nielsen Media Research, the Internet Demographics Survey
is the first population-projectable survey regarding Internet usage, the
companies said. Among the survey's findings: there is a sizable base
of Internet users--some 24 million people--in the United States and
Canada; users of the World Wide Web are an ideal target for business
applications since they were found typically to be more educated and to
have higher incomes than the rest of the population; and some 2.5
million people have already made purchases using the Web. The study
found that users access the Internet fairly frequently, with 31%
accessing it at least once a day. In addition, Internet users spend an
average of five hours and 28 minutes online per week. When accumulated
and averaged against the total number of people in the population, this
translates to roughly 35 minutes per week per person--equivalent to the
average amount of time a person spends viewing video tapes per week, the
companies said. More information about the report is available at
http://www.commerce.net and http://www.nielsenmedia.com.
(Cowles/SIMBA Media Daily 10/30/95)

For just $13.90 U.S. Seattle Filmworks will process a roll of 24
photos, email you when there done, let you download them off the Net
and follow up with prints and a diskette a few days later in Snail.
When Uncle Harry wants pictures, just stick the "roll" up on your home
page and let him download the roll and view them with the free viewer
from Seattle fim works.

But can I still read "The Star" at the checkout counter?

The Kroger national chain of supermarkets plans to take grocery orders
on the Internet for home delivery and will begin testing the service in
Columbus, Ohio. Customers will call up Kroger's new site on the World
Wide Web, browse a menu of "aisles'' of groceries or search for specific
items, total up the order and pay when it's delivered. Delivery will
cost $10 for orders up to $100, and 10 percent of the bill for orders
above over $100. (Cincinnati Enquirer 9 Nov 95 C15)

Internet Survey

A new survey released Thursday puts the number of U.S. Internet users
at 9.5 million, well below the 24 million figure
cited in an earlier study by Nielsen Media Research.
The latest survey, by Find/SVP, featured a slew of interesting data:

Users spend an average of 6.6 hours a week on the Net.

51 percent of users accessed the Internet for the first time last
year.

25 percent of users have more than one method for accessing the
Internet.

The average Internet user is 36 years old with an income of $62,000.

Overall, 31 percent of Internet users were under age 30; 27 percent
were age 30-39, 26 percent were 40-49 and 13
percent were 50 or older.

75 percent of Internet users visit fewer than 50 sites in any depth.

The Nielsen study has been criticized for methods that may have
inflated its numbers.
source

On-line Usage

In the case of America Online and CompuServe, we know (because they
tell us) that most of the users, anywhere from 50%-70% depending on
who you talk to, don't use the 5 free hours of service. There are a
lot of users using more than the 5 free hours though, and these users
drive up the average time spent online to about 6-8 hours per month,
on average spending about $17-$18 month in the case of America Online.
1/22/96

Banking

1993: 7 bio. ATM transactions averaging $50 (NYT, mid-Feb.)

Online Subscriber Lists Keep Growing and Growing

Fueled by strong increases in the consumer segment, subscriptions to
online services soared to nearly 15 million in 1995, according to
Electronic Information Reports Year-End Online Subscriber Survey The
industry posted a net gain of more than 5.7 million subscribers last
year, according to the survey. Driven by the explosive popularity of
the World Wide Web and the increasing number of newbies dipping a toe
into cyberspace, consumer services increased 86.8% to reach 11.4
million subscribers at the end of 1995. America Online was the
leading consumer service, finishing the year with 4.5 million
subscribers, a 200% gain from 1.5 million subscribers at the end of
1994. AOL had grown to 5 million by February and has predicted it
will have 10 million customers by the end of 1997. Among business
services, the report said, Lexis-Nexis was king with 744,000
subscribers, followed by Dow Jones News Retrieval with 233,000.
source

AT&T Worldnet

WWW use doubled in '95

Home use of the World Wide Web doubled in the last six months of 1995,
according research firm Odyssey. The company's study estimates Web
penetration at about 7.5 million households, or 8% of the U.S. total.
(Wall Street Journal 7 Mar 96 B6)

Technical fix may resolve online copyright issues

In the next year or so, distributors of electronic information will be
able to include encryption devices that prevent customers from passing
usable copies onto other unauthorized users. Other software under
development will create hidden digital "watermarks" that automatically
attach themselves to a file, enabling providers to identify all users.
"Copyright law will start to take a back seat to technology," says an
intellectual property consultant. "Anything that you do with a piece
of content" will be traceable. (Chronicle of Higher Education 22 Mar
96 A23)

Generation X should be "Generation PC"

A survey of 3,200 respondents by Custom Research Inc. shows 99% of
people born after 1971 had used a computer before the age of 10. More
than 66% of those under age 25 called themselves "intermediate,"
"expert" or "power" users. Of those born after 1971, only 7% had used
a computer before age 10, and only 19% rated themselves "intermediate"
or above. The survey was conducted via an electronic kiosk that's
part of a traveling Smithsonian exhibit. (Investor's Business Daily
21 Mar 96 A8)

Small phone companies want Internet Regulation

Small telephone companies, faced with new technology that enables
phone calls, particularly long-distance ones, to be placed over the
Internet, are clamoring for more government regulation of Internet
activities. While Internet access is defined as an "enhanced
service," free from federal access charges, telephone companies must
pay FCC fees when they provide long-distance service. "The Internet
completely shatters the model that has been established to keep those
subsidies alive," says a Heritage Foundation policy analyst. "The
really scary thing is extending FCC price regulations into the
computer sector. Just because we have an existing system in place and
one group is getting stuck, doesn't mean we have to go stick it to
another group." The America's Carriers Telecommunication Association
has petitioned the FCC to stop the use of the Internet for
long-distance service, and the FCC has extended the comment deadline
to May 8. (Investor's Business Daily 2 Apr 96 A4)

Computers Found In 34% of U.S. Households

WASHINGTON - The number of American homes with personal computers
increased slightly last year but the percentage of households with PCs
remained unchanged, a trade group says. The Software Publishers
Association's fifth annual survey said the number of households with
computers increased to 33.9 million from 32.6 million, while the
percentage of homes with PCs remained at 34 percent. The survey of
630 random households found that 79 percent had machines compatible
with computers made by IBM while 16 percent had Apple Computer
machines, the same as last year. Seventy percent of PC households
reported owning a modem, of which 46 percent subscribed to an on-line
service. Of all PCs purchased in 1995, 83 percent were equipped with
CD-ROM drives, compared with 55 percent in 1994, the survey said.
source

June Email

He said Juno charges advertisers about 9 cents per user, so if all
100,000 customers call up their E-mail every day, it would cost an
advertiser about $9,000 a day, or $63,000 per week. In contrast, he
said, direct mail ads end up costing about 55 cents to 80 cents per
reader, and print ads cost about 5 cents to 7 cents per reader and
they don't have an interactive component.
source

PSI

Survey Says: 29 Million on the Net

Fifteen percent of all Americans are flocking to the Internet,
according to a Louis Harris Poll released Sunday. The telephone
survey conducted two weeks ago asked 1,005 adults about their online
habits. The survey found 15 percent, or 29 million people, use the
Internet. A slightly larger number of computer users, 17 percent of
those surveyed, subscribe to an online service. According to the
poll, nearly one in five Americans use email.
source

Keynote: Arno Penzias

Eliminate unneeded information intermediaries.

hierarchical

team-based

learning-based

focus

internals

outcomes

relationship

value

capital

information

attention

communication

presentation

active listening

dialogue

knowledge

compartmentalized

shared

rebuilt

Surveys: Consumers Embracing New Technologies

Traditional broadcast television is facing stiff competition from
cable TV, pay-per-view, direct broadcast satellite services and other
technologies, according to Odyssey's annual survey of at-home
information and entertainment. The survey by the San Francisco-based
market research firm revealed that 53% of cable subscribers now
receive at least one premium channel up, from 46% two years ago. The
study also says consumers use their VCRs to tape shows an average of
13.3 times per month. The survey found that 4.5 million U.S.
households have direct broadcast satellite service -- making it more
than just a phenomenon limited to those without access to cable
hookups. Consumers are also using their computers more and more. The
average home PC user spends 11.4 hours per week using the computer for
personal use as opposed to 8.5 hours last year. How do users spend
their computer time? Either using online services or CD-ROMs,
according to Odyssey President Nick Donatiello. Meanwhile, another
survey of home computer usage from a Louis Harris & Associates poll
said at least 33 million American adults use some type of computer
online service, while about 29 million surf the Internet. The poll
also showed that at least 41 million adults in the United States use
some form of electronic mail.
Source

Link layer mobility: transparent to higher layers, but different
solutions for different LANs, difficult for long-distance moves.
Network layer mobility: same for different LANs, but may need
different ones for different network protocols (Internet, APPN,
Novell).

The Growth Of Online/Internet Advertising

(1996-06-04) NEW YORK - Online/Internet advertising remains a small drop
in the total $125 billion U.S. advertising market, but some see
dramatic growth taking place. Here is technology consultant Jupiter
Communications' estimate of advertising totals online for 1995 to 2000:

1995

$80 million

1996

$343 million

1997

$1.1 billion

1998

$2.2 billion

1999

$3.6 billion

2000

$5.0 billion

Internet Demographic: Still Male, But In Flux

The adage about the Internet being "mostly male, mostly pale" still
holds true according to a recent survey from the Georgia Institute of
Technology, which found the average user of the World Wide Web is a
33-year-old white male with an income of $59,000. That's a
demographic in flux, however, as the survey noted the percentage of
women using the Web was steadily increasing, up roughly 2% from 29% in
a similar survey last fall. That increase has been even more dramatic
in Europe, where the number of women jumped 45%, to 15.2% from 10.5%.
"There's been a tremendous shift in age and gender, in the direction
of greater diversity," noted Colleen Kehoe, a researcher on the
project. Kehoe told Media Daily that among the survey's more
startling findings was the abrupt shift away from office and
educational use towards home use. "The big story is where people are
accessing the Web," she said. "Half the people we surveyed are home
users, which is a big switch from two years ago, when the primary
means of accessing the Internet was at work or from an educational
institution." According to Kehoe, 48.5% of the 11,700 Web users
surveyed accessed the Internet from home using local providers, versus
27.9% a year ago. While the survey was not random, Kehoe said the
results were sound because of the size of the group, and the fact that
the baseline demographic numbers match up with similar surveys from
research firms Find/SVP, and Nielsen Media Research. The survey, the
latest of five from Georgia Institute of Technology, can be viewed on
the Web at http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/user_surveys.
source

MCI Backbone

MCI says it plans to increase the backbone speed of its Internet
network from 155 megabits per second to 622 megabits by year's end. The
company reports that 13,000 switch ports will be added to accommodate
customers, and a total of $60 million will be invested in the equipment
necessary to secure the higher backbone speeds. Since its launch in
late 1994, MCI says that traffic on its network has grown 5,610 percent
and over 250 terabytes [per month]

Netday News, 6/25/96

Spamming

Lately, there have been a few messages in this newsfroup complaining
(with justification) about increases in the frequency of unsolicited
commercial e-mail. Be aware that this cloud has a silver lining. Under
US Code Title 47, you can make *at least* $500 from each instance of
unsolicited e-mail. Assuming that there is an inexhaustible supply of
morons with computers (a reasonable assumption, IMO), you may never have
to work again!

Here's the legalese. Under USC 47 Sec.227(b)(1)(C):

"It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States
to use any telephone facsimile machine, computer, or other device to
send an unsolicited advertisement to a telephone facsimile machine"

where a "telephone facsimile machine" is defined in Sec.227(a)(2)(B)
as:

"equipment which has the capacity to transcribe text or images (or
both) from an electronic signal received over a regular telephone line
onto paper."
Note that under this definition, your e-mail account, modem, computer
and printer constitute a fax machine.
And now, the payoff. Under Sec.227(b)(3)(B):

"A person or entity may, if otherwise permitted by the laws or
rules of court of a State, bring in an appropriate court of
that State -
(A) an action based on a violation of this subsection or the
regulations prescribed under this subsection to enjoin
such violation,
(B) an action to recover for actual monetary loss from such a
violation, or to receive $500 in damages for each such
violation, whichever is greater, or
(C) both such actions. If the court finds that the defendant
willfully or knowingly violated this subsection or the
regulations prescribed under this subsection, the court
may, in its discretion, increase the amount of the award
to an amount equal to not more than 3 times the amount
available under subparagraph (B) of this paragraph."

So, don't keep your name out of the newsfroup archives via
X-No-Archive! Don't fake your e-mail address to foil the header
scanners! Profit from the stupidity of others! MAKE MONEY FAST!

Ahem. Sorry, got a little carried away there.

Alternatively, you could make a file from the legal text above,
prepend it to each unsolicited e-mail and send it to the postmaster at
the originating site.

Ron Hill (ron@canuck.com)
"The Internet is the largest collaboration of people that the world
has ever seen, but it's also the largest half-finished thing ever
made." Harold Thimbleby - New Scientist 23 March 1996 p. 59

Credit card charges

5 cents for a credit-card authorization, 18 cents to settle, and a
2.25 percent transaction fee on top of that. CyberCoin: 8 c/25 c
transactions, rising to 31 c for $10.
source

Advertising

While Forrester Research put ad revenues at less than $30 million
last year, the company is projecting ad revenues to reach $80 million
this year, according to analyst Mary Modahl. I/Pro, which provides Web
measurement and analysis services, put the figure for this year at $110
million.

Click-through rates are estimated at an average of 1-1/2 percent to 4
percent, LeFurgy said.

MCI Upgrade

MCI Communications Corp. has completed a $60 million upgrade of its
worldwide Internet backbone, quadrupling data transmission speeds to
622M bits per second ... Traffic on MCI's Internet network is growing
by 30 percent per month, with more than 320 trillion bytes of data
currently running over the network each month, MCI officials said. (USA
Today)